


That Speech

by adiwriting



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5552213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adiwriting/pseuds/adiwriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So, I’ve already come up with about 15 different responses to your speech. Do you want me to start listing them or do you want to give the speech first?” Felicity says as Oliver helps her into the wheelchair she claims she doesn’t need but he and the hospital insist on. </p>
<p>“Speech?” he asks, handing her the purse she’d left on the bed and looking around the room for anything else they may have left around after basically living in this room for the last month. </p>
<p>“The one where you tell me that you love me too much to watch me get hurt and that I’m better off without you speech,” she says, and though her voice sounds light and teasing, he knows her well enough to hear the pain behind it. </p>
<p>“Ah, that speech.” </p>
<p>Post 4x09 One-Shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Speech

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into the Arrow Fandom- but after 4x09, I just couldn't help but try my hand at some Olicity fix-it fic. Hopefully I did our characters some sort of justice.

“So, I’ve already come up with about 15 different responses to your speech. Do you want me to start listing them or do you want to give the speech first?” Felicity says as Oliver helps her into the wheelchair she claims she doesn’t need but he and the hospital insist on. 

“Speech?” he asks, handing her the purse she’d left on the bed and looking around the room for anything else they may have left around after basically living in this room for the last month. 

“The one where you tell me that you love me too much to watch me get hurt and that I’m better off without you speech,” she says, and though her voice sounds light and teasing, he knows her well enough to hear the pain behind it. 

“Ah, _that_ speech.” 

“Yes, _that_ speech. The famous Oliver Queen, one-man army speech. The famous ‘I’m better off alone’ speech,” she starts to ramble. “I mean, I think I’ve already heard every reiteration of it before, so it’s not like you need to say it or anything. In fact, I could probably recite it for you. I’m guessing it will go like this. ‘Felicity, because of the life that I lead, I just think that it’s better not to be with you.’ Was that close?” 

She looks at him with questioning eyes, but immediately continues talking before he can respond. 

“I’ve been waiting for it ever since I woke up. Only you haven’t said it yet. You’ve barely even hinted at it, and it’s been weeks. I’d almost think you weren’t going to say anything, except I see the guilt in your eyes. I know it’s coming. So, I figured you were holding it in until I got out of the hospital out of some misguided sense of obligation or honor or something. Which is fine by me. Really. It gave me time to come up with the list. And it’s a long list. So do you want to hear it?” 

“I really don’t have to,” he says with a deep sigh, wondering at what point exactly it was that he changed so much. 

This time last year, he was pushing her away and making them both miserable, all because he couldn’t stand the thought of losing her. This year, he nearly had lost her — numerous times. Yet, he hadn’t even thought about breaking up with her. Not once. Old Oliver would be kicking his ass right now for even thinking about staying with her. However, he’d learned something since then — something that she’d helped teach him. Being alone really wasn’t better. 

“But if I don’t read you my list, how will I convince you that I’m fine and that I can make my own choices?” she asks. 

He really wants nothing more than to leave this room as quickly as possible and just get Felicity back home. Of all the horrible things that have happened to him over the years, the memories of this hospital room — of his fiancé flat lining twice, of her getting a deadly infection just as she had been taking a turn for the better, of all the hours he’d spent with his hand on her chest just so he could assure himself that she was still breathing — the memories of this hospital room are by far some of his worst. 

Still, all of their friends are waiting for them outside, and he knows if they don’t have this conversation now, they won’t get another chance for several hours. He can’t do that to her, not with the way she’s looking up at him with such guarded eyes, like she is protecting herself from him. It hurts to see that look again. He hasn’t seen it since last year, and he still hasn’t forgiven himself for all the pain he’d caused her back then. He certainly isn’t going to allow her to feel any more of it. 

“You really want to read me this list of yours?” he asks, squatting down in front of her so that they are eye to eye. 

“I even typed it,” she says, tilting her phone towards him so that he can see that she has in fact typed up a list titled, _Reasons Oliver is Totally Wrong About Everything._

“I thought you’ve been playing Tetris,” he teases. 

“I have been,” she shrugs, causing her to wince as the movement pulled on her stitches. Though the bullet wound had healed over and was starting to scar, the incision from her last surgery still hasn’t. “I beat all of your high scores. It just wasn’t all I was doing,” she says, this time her voice laced with pain. 

“Maybe I should talk to the doctor again about giving you something,” he said. He knew that the doctor had said they needed to ease off of her pain meds now that she was starting to get better so that she wouldn’t develop an addiction, but he hated watching her suffer. 

“You could just get Dig to bring me some more of those aspirins,” she says with a false smile, trying to cover the obvious discomfort she is in. 

“You know those weren’t aspirin right?” 

“I think I’ve played doctor enough times to know that,” she says, immediately causing him to smirk. “Oh, you know what I meant,” she adds with a playful swat on his arm. 

“So this list of yours,” he says, taking her phone from her hands and looking down at it. “I hate to tell you after you clearly put so much work into it, but it’s pretty useless.” 

“Because you’re going to break up with me anyway?” she asks. 

“No.” 

“No?” she asks, looking at him like she doesn’t even know him. 

“No, speeches are very ‘Old Oliver,’” he says, stealing a phrase she’d throw at him several times before. 

“Pretty sure that’s #3 on my list,” she says, looking at him hesitantly, as if she doesn’t want to let herself believe that he’s telling her the truth. 

“Old Oliver was an idiot.” 

“Still #3,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “#3 was a very long rant in which Al Sah-him comes up a few times. As does the suicide plane.” 

He puts his hand over hers to stop her. He needs to say this to her. He needs to make it perfectly clear to her, so that she never has to doubt him again. 

“Somebody once told me that the point of marriage is to get though the hard times because we are together not in spite of it,” he said. “And I heard you. I wouldn’t have proposed to you that night if I hadn’t. When I proposed to you, I knew that it might mean making you a target for my enemies, for the rest of our lives. That terrifies me more than you’ll ever know.” 

“So why did you do it?” she asks, moving her hands to cradle his face and wipe away his tears. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. 

“Because I chose to trust you when you said that this was your choice.” 

“It is my choice,” she says with a decisive nod. “You will always be my choice. Not only you, my fiancé, but also you, the vigilante. Your mission became mine a long time ago and I’m not going to give that up just because some terrorist organization put a hit out on us. I knew what I was getting myself into when I agreed to join Team Arrow, just as much as I knew what I was agreeing to when I said yes to your proposal. You are the best choice I’ve ever made.” 

“Alright.” 

“So, no speech?” She smiles up at him in a way he hasn’t seen for weeks. She’s practically glowing with happiness, and that makes his heart nearly stop with how much emotion that one smile causes.

For four long weeks, he’d worried that he’d never get to see that smile again. Even once she’d been cleared of the infection and the doctor had promised him that she’d make a full recovery, her recovery hadn’t been pretty. He’d spent those weeks lost in a sea of guilt, anger, and crushing sadness, but today? With the way she’s smiling back at him right now? For the first time since the shooting, he truly feels like everything will actually be alright. How could it not be? 

“No speech,” he says with a wide smile, leaning in to give her a kiss.

“I have another list,” she says once he pulls away. 

“Felicity,” he says with a sigh, throwing his head back to look at the ceiling. He just wants to go home already. 

“Well I need to tell you about this list before you roll me out there and my mother is around to hear, because believe me… she’ll have her own suggestions that neither of us want to hear.” 

He gives her a confused look, to which she takes her phone back and pulls up another document she’d apparently been working on: _Reason’s the Doctor’s Wrong and Ways We Can Still Totally Have Sex._

His brain is telling him no, but the look in her eyes is telling him yes…


End file.
